Category: Politics

Seems like an odd way to pick a candidate… According to the Seattle Times:

Only 4 percent of [Huckabee’s] backers said they wanted a contender with experience, and 2 percent said they were looking for a Republican who can win the White House in November.

Of course the whole Iowa caucus system is a complete nonsense: a throw-back to deeply corrupt 18th and 19th century political practices. To my mind, it has only one virtue: on the Democrat side, it hints at the benefits of a more equitable voting system, such as STV. But even that small idea is drowned out by the cash registers. Hitch points this out (adopting his best Mencken tone); everybody else seems to give it a pass because they’re caught up in the theatre…

When I saw this story:

Thick black smoke billowed from a fire Wednesday in Vice President Dick Cheney’s suite of offices in the historic Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House. Cheney’s office was damaged by smoke and water from fire hoses, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said.

I’m sure I’m not the only person whose first reaction was that one of Cheney’s memos required more than shredding….
UPDATE: Looks like TPM got there ahead of me…

This is what happens when a political apparatchik forgets her cover story and speaks her mind:

(Via TPM.)

Peter Watson’s piece in today’s Times – Here’s an improvement on democracy – has a lousy title but is spot-on otherwise:

The inconvenient truth is that the West should be exporting secularism around the world before it exports democracy. Democracy implies not just one person one vote but – no less important – that the political process proceeds by rational means, by argument, by persuasion, and is based on knowledge that is as objective, as scientific, as one can make it. The objective knowledge has to come first.

In other words, secularism is a necessary precondition for effective democracy. Without it, nascent democracies rarely survive.

Here’s Hitch, in characteristically forthright style, shredding “Mitt Romney’s windy, worthless speech”. Money quote:

A long time ago, Romney took the decision to be a fool for Joseph Smith, a convicted fraud and serial practitioner of statutory rape who at times made war on the United States and whose cult has been made to amend itself several times in order to be considered American at all. We do not require pious lectures on the American founding from such a man…

Hear, hear! I wish we saw more of this kind of thing:

Defence Minister Lord Drayson has taken a “leave of absence” from the government in a bid to take part in the world-famous 24-hour Le Mans race.

The only downside is that the kind of person who is willing to give up political power in order to follow his or her dream is probably the kind of person we want in government….

Here’s Christopher Orr in TNR:

Whether he intended to or not, at a town meeting in Iowa last night Rudy Giuliani offered what may be the most honest defense of torture I’ve seen from an American politician. It is also, of course, a deeply immoral one. Asked whether waterboarding constituted torture, he replied:
It depends on how it’s done. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it. [emphasis mine]
What the United States is doing isn’t torture because it’s the United States doing it. I suspect this is the way a lot of torture apologists feel, but give Giuliani credit for being (I think) the first to come out and say it.

This is the same Giuliani who said at the United Nations, on October 1 2001:

On this issue – terrorism – the United Nations must draw a line. The era of moral relativism between those who practice or condone terrorism, and those nations who stand up against it, must end. Moral relativism does not have a place in this discussion and debate.
There is no moral way to sympathize with grossly immoral actions.

Hypocritical S.O.B….

Over at TPM, Josh wonders why Hitchens et al insist on using the term “Islamofacism” instead of some more accurate neologism like “Islamotarianism”. His diagnosis:

The battle against fascism and then later communism were not only by most measures the greatest battles and dangers the United States has ever faced. They were also the greatest mixes of military struggle and intellectual engagement. For people who make their livings with pens and keyboards especially that combination is simply intoxicating. That is, among other reasons, what is behind the very deserved reputation of George Orwell.
But this isn’t 1938 or 1948. A bummer perhaps if you’re aiming to write a political essay for the ages. But not a bad thing if you’re trying to live a life, raise a family or a bunch other things.

A blogger attending a lunch at which Hillary Clinton was speaking reports the following:

What I do know, is that I heard her say that she would end the Iraq war immediately upon taking office. Lots of heads snapped up when she said that (and there was plenty of applause, even a little whooping) and the very politically plugged in person sitting next to me remarked that the statement was “completely new”. She went on to say that the troops had already done everything they had been asked to do: got rid of Saddam, created a situation where elections could take place, surged to create political stability so the elected Iraqi government could do some legislating and work out a political solution (which she said they have not done) and that it was unfair to ask our troops to stay in Iraq and “play referee to an Iraqi civil war.” She said there is no military solution.

If the report is accurate, and if she sticks – forcefully – to this line, she’s going to be the next POTUS. I think Obama will make a fine VP.

Terry just blogged the following; I can do no better than to simply repeat it.

A Question
From Bill O’Reilly we get the following.
[W]ould you support President John Edwards? Remember, no coerced interrogation, civilian lawyers in courts for captured overseas terrorists, no branding the Iranian guards terrorists, and no phone surveillance without a specific warrant.
To which the the only answer I can think of is,
Hell yes.

Absolutely. I hope one of his (increasingly rare) non-lickspittle guests poses the obvious challenge: “Bill: why do you hate the U.S. Constitution?”